Fixing my Red Paint

hello all,

im a 19 year old Guy who just got his own room, its an attic room and i painted it a vibrant red. i thought it would be just fine however the red paint came out darker in some areas and lighter is other areas and just lap lanes all over the place. i was hopping if anyone would have any advice on what i should do. i have pics for ya'll so see.

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Red is not a very pigment rich color - so you need either paint with more pigments (high quality paint) or more coats. You learn this one the hard way - it took me six coats to get my first 'red' job to look good. Next time buy better paint.

__________________
If I could only remember to THINK about what I was doing before I did it.

Well, it's actually because the Napthol Red and Arylide Yellow (also called "Hansa Yellow") pigments used to colour house paints have poor hide.

So, what you're seeing on your wall are differences in colour density between areas with one coat of red paint and two coats of red paint (where one roller coat overlapped another).

I agree with the first post. What's needed is additional coats of paint. Eventually the red paint will completely hide the substrate, and that that point you won't be able to see any difference in colour density with each additional coat.

It's also true that if you were to have bought a more expensive paint from a paint store, you would have gotten that company's own colourants rather than the generic colourants used in hardware stores and home centers. In that case, instead of getting Napthol Red, you may have gotten Quinicridone or Perylene Red pigment in your paint, which would both hide better and be more colourfast to UV light from the Sun. In better quality paints, they use Benzimidazilone Yellow, which is also more opaque and more UV resistant.

PS:
You showed tremendous restraint in not painting the walls black, son, and I'm proud of ya.

__________________Bashing my head against the walls in some of the internet's finest chat rooms.

Go to that web site
Click on the "For the Seller and Specifier" link on the top right hand corner
Click on the "PQI Architect Modules" link in the list on the left side
Click on the "Download Now" link for the file "How Colour is Affected by the Ingredients in Paint".
Go to the table on Page 2.

Both Arylide (or Hansa) Yellow and Napthol Red are "Azo" pigments, meaning that they both have an "azo" group in them, which means a double nitrogen=nitrogen bond. Like this (-N=N-)
Napthol Red and Arylide yellow are commonly used as paint pigments because they are quite inexpensive and are more colourfast than many other red and yellow pigments.

Better quality paints will use Quinicridone or Perylene red as the red pigment and Benzimidazilone yellow as the yellow pigment in their colourants because these pigments provide better colourfastness and hide.

But, to get that better red colourant, you need to buy your paint from a paint store, not a hardware store or home center. That's because paint stores will have a different tinting machine for each brand of paint they sell, and will use each company's colourants on that company's paints for tinting. Hardware stores and home centers will typically use the same colourants on every brand of paint they sell, and you can count on those colourants to be the lower quality and least expensive ones. So, if you're gonna pay more for Benjamin Moore paint, be sure to buy it at a paint store where you'll get Benjamin Moore colourants in that paint, in which case you're likely to get those better red and yellow pigments.

You can buy LOTS of better hiding and more colourfast pigments in art supply stores, like lead oxide (which is read) lead carbonate (white), cadmium red, cobalt blue, etc. But, paint companies aren't allowed to use these pigments in their paints.

There was a time when I was seriously thinking of using these artists pigments to colour Pratt & Lambert tint bases I purchased to make higher hiding and more colourfast paints than I could buy from Pratt & Lambert.

__________________Bashing my head against the walls in some of the internet's finest chat rooms.

red room

Next time you paint red, you can either use a dark gray primer that will actually bring out the true red with fewer coats or tou can actually prime with an exterior product(RED BASE) and then top coat it with your red interior product.

I painted my dining room red. I used BM Aura paint $50/gal. Did not prime the walls prior to painting since this paint is self priming. The first coat looked blochy and used about 3/4 of a gallon. Went and bought a second gallon. The second coat came out incredibly better and would have sufficed. But I still had 2/3 gallon of paint left so I said if I don't use it now it will go to waste. So I put a third and it came out awesome. I am sold on the Aura paint.